


A Powerful Woman

by xxSparksxx



Series: And Then There Were Two [5]
Category: And Then There Were None (TV 2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 18:22:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6250483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxSparksxx/pseuds/xxSparksxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vera has no reason to be awake now. She’s got no job, and no settled home yet. They have been in New York for fewer than ten days. Philip has promised her that he will find somewhere more permanent for them to live, once he’s made contact with some of his acquaintances here. Once he’s done that, once Vera can unpack and begin to settle into this new country, she will begin looking for work. But for now she has nothing to do, and they are in lodgings. And their landlady, a plump Irishwoman who thinks Philip is wonderful and looks down on Vera for being English, wakes every morning at five and begins singing at five thirty every morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Powerful Woman

**Author's Note:**

> Vera just won’t leave me alone...as ever, many thanks to rainpuddle13 and mmmuses for cheerleading and for letting me wail about Vera, and special thanks this time to rainpuddle13 for beta-reading.

Vera opens her eyes, just wide enough to peer at the clock on the bedside table. Then she closes her eyes again. Five thirty, on the dot. Just like yesterday morning, and the morning before. Just like every morning since they rented the room. 

Behind her, Philip sighs. She feels it, warm against her neck. He’s holding her so close that she can hardly move without disturbing him. He’s taken to sleeping like that, pressed up against her. It ought to feel like he’s caging her to him, but it doesn’t. She doesn’t feel trapped. It makes her feel wanted, even cherished, to be held like this. She likes the way he keeps her warm, the way he wraps an arm around her waist and tucks his head against her shoulder or neck. She likes to feel him close when she wakes up in the night. And of course she likes the way his cock aligns with the crease of her buttocks, and how all she has to do is _wriggle_ , just a little, and then she can feel him harden against her.

Downstairs, their landlady is singing.

Vera has no particular objection to _singing_. She’s been known to sing along to the radio, on occasion. She had sung in the choir, in the girls’ home she’d been brought up in. She had sung the school song, as a games mistress. Hymns in church on Sunday. Good Miss Claythorne, faithful to the religion that had brought her up. Church on Sunday, singing along with the same songs that she’d sung as a girl. 

But she loathes hymns. They have been a necessary part of her disguise, a piece of armour to protect her true self with, but she loathes them. Hymns take her back to a place she would much rather forget. And so, of course, Vera is now renting a room from a landlady who sings hymns day in, day out. Nothing else. And she sings them off-key, and she begins singing at _five thirty_ in the morning.

Vera opens her eyes again and stares at the clock. A minute has ticked by. Five thirty-one. She can see the clock face easily enough. The curtains are thin, and when the sun rises the curtains do nothing to keep it out of the room. The sun hasn’t risen yet. It is grey outside, not quite dark, but certainly nowhere near daylight. The clock face is white in the gloom, the numbers and hands stark black.

“Go back to sleep,” Philip slurs. His mouth brushes against her neck as he speaks. Vera sighs, and closes her eyes once more. But she can’t do it. She can’t sleep. She feels as though every new hymn, every new _verse_ , is winding her tighter and tighter. Like a wind-up toy, she will explode into a convulsion of nerves if the singing does not stop. 

Five thirty in the morning.

Vera has no reason to be awake now. She’s got no job, and no settled home yet. They have been in New York for fewer than ten days. Philip has promised her that he will find somewhere more permanent for them to live, once he’s made contact with some of his acquaintances here. Once he’s done that, once Vera can unpack and begin to settle into this new country, she will begin looking for work. But for now she has nothing to do, and they are in lodgings. And their landlady, a plump Irishwoman who thinks Philip is wonderful and looks down on Vera for being English, wakes every morning at five and begins singing at five thirty every morning. 

Every single morning.

She sighs, and shifts a little. Philip sighs as well, and she feels him press a kiss to her skin.

“ _Sleep_ ,” he insists. But Vera is too wound up.

“Five thirty in the _bloody_ morning,” she hisses. “Every single morning, Philip. Bloody _hymns_ at five thirty in the morning. It’s not even light yet!” Philip hums, but he doesn’t say anything. She can almost feel him willing her to go back to sleep, to ignore the off-key singing from downstairs. She would do a lot of things to please Philip, but she can’t do this. She can’t go back to sleep. “I’m going insane,” she says. “This is what going insane feels like.”

“Vera, can you not just –,”

“One more morning of this and I’m going to snap,” she interrupts him. “I could just – I could kill her, Philip, I really could.”

There’s a pause, a silence. Not downstairs, where Mrs Flynn is still singing, but here in the bedroom. Philip is silent behind her, but he is awake now, properly awake. She can feel it in the way he holds her, the muscles in his arm a little less relaxed than before. 

“Oh, really,” he says at last. He’s intrigued, and more than that, he’s aroused. She can feel his cock beginning to harden against her. Not much, not yet. Vera smiles to herself and waits for his lead. Philip presses even closer to her and rubs his nose against her neck. “How would you do it, darling?” he asks in a low murmur. “How would you kill her, Vera?”

“Accidentally,” says Vera. His hand is curled against her stomach, and Vera covers it with her own. Then she encourages his hand down, over her abdomen, and then under the hem of her make-shift nightdress. It’s one of his shirts. She took it from his suitcase four days ago, stole it from him for her own use. Philip has not objected. The hem falls to her thighs, normally, but it has ridden up during the night. She is bare beneath it. She guides Philip to her breast under the shirt, and he lets his hand sit there. His thumb moves in lazy circles across her nipple. 

“Of course it would be accidentally,” he murmurs. “You did that so beautifully before. My glorious liar.” He kisses her neck, open-mouthed, his tongue stroking softly across her skin. It’s a contrast to his stubble, which is a delicious rasp, a sting of hard bristles. Vera wants to turn in his arms, to face him, to take his mouth with hers. She wants to kiss him until she can’t hear the singing any longer. But he’s got her firmly, and she knows he won’t let her move until he’s ready for her to move. She knows that by now. Sometimes that’s dangerous for her; sometimes he uses his physical strength to overwhelm her. Once he held her down and picked apart her lies until she lay exposed beneath him. But mostly it’s a thrill, to know he’s so strong, to be held by him. There is part of her that likes submitting to him, likes giving him control. There is a power to be found in it, she’s found. At least when it is Philip to whom she offers her submission. 

“How, Vera?” he asks her. “Tell me.” He pushes against her, letting her feel how hard he’s growing, and Vera smiles. The singing is still there, a grating background noise, but it’s easier to ignore now. Philip is an engrossing distraction. 

“Do you want to know a secret?” she asks, rather than answering his demand. Philip makes an encouraging sound. He takes her nipple between thumb and forefinger and pinches lightly. Vera arches up into it, wanting more, but Philip seems determined to tease. Well, she thinks, he’s not the only one who can play that game. She rocks back against him, stimulating his cock as best she can from this position. But it’s her words, she knows, that will excite him most. “Well?” she asks coyly. “Do you?”

“Tell me,” Philip demands. He pinches her nipple again, harder this time, the kind of pain-pleasure that Vera loves. It sends ripples right through her body, right into her cunt. A punishment for delaying, but a reward too. She has a secret and she’s willingly offering it to him. She knows how he must like that. So often he has demanded secrets and lies from her when she has been unwilling to give them to him. He drags them from her with such ease, and then he rewards her. He gives her pinches and bites and hard thrusts into her body until she forgets that he’s stripped her of another layer of pretence. It’s almost become a game between them, a game they’re already expert at playing. 

Vera turns her head, so she can see Philip just in the periphery of her vision. “Cyril wasn’t the first person who died because of me,” she whispers to him. Not the first person she killed, she should say. Philip demands honesty from her and the honest truth is that she, by action and inaction alike, killed Cyril. But she can’t say it, she can’t speak those words. Not even for Philip, not even though she knows he would reward her so pleasurably for saying it aloud.

Still, it’s enough to surprise him. She hears his sharp intake of air, and then his hand tightens on her breast, grasping it in his hand, kneading it. Her nipple is already hard, and she can feel the growing dampness between her legs. 

“Tell me,” he says, softly now. It’s no longer a demand. She’s offering this freely, so there’s no need for him to demand it of her. “What did you do, darling?”

“There was a matron at the home,” Vera murmurs. She closes her eyes so she can concentrate on the feelings he’s eliciting in her. The touch of his hand at her bare breast, the press of his hot cock against her buttocks. His breath against her neck is warm. Then he laps at her skin with his tongue and his breath becomes cold on her wet skin. “We all hated her,” she says. She suddenly remembers, with excruciating vividness, the feel of a rod on her hands. The ice-cold baths. Kneeling on hard floors for hours on end. Some of the staff at the home had been kind, but not Matron Lucas. Not her. Vera learned how to hate from that woman, that cruel woman who saw the girls in her care as nothing more than the product of sin.

“I killed her with a bar of soap,” Vera says. Philip is groping for her other breast, plucking at her nipple, teasing it to hardness. His lips brush against her neck. It’s as if she’s an instrument and he’s a master musician. He plays her so well. He has learned how to make her body sing for him. But when she speaks, his fingers go still, his forefinger pressing against her nipple.

“A bar of soap?” he repeats, incredulous. “Really?”

“Mm.” When Vera closes her eyes, she can remember every detail. The colour of the soap, the creaking fifth step that they all learned to skip over. The electric light that never worked, not on that staircase, because nobody ever bothered to fix it. “I left it on the stairs,” she says. “She went to the bathroom in the morning and she just…flew.” 

Vera hadn’t intended to kill her. She’d only been a child at the time, not even nine years old. All she’d meant to do was give Matron Lucas a scare, some bruises, perhaps a knock on the head that would keep her in bed for several days. A broken bone had been too much to hope for. But instead Matron Lucas had gone head over heels, crashing down the whole flight of stairs. By the time Vera had joined the others, flocking onto the landing to see what the noise was, Matron Lucas had been dead, her neck snapped on impact with the wall.

They all used the same type of soap, in the home. Vera had made quite sure that nobody would ever guess it was _her_ bar of soap. And nobody had guessed. An accident, the coroner had ruled. An unfortunate accident. None of the girls could say whose soap it had been, who might have dropped it on their way to bed. Nobody could imagine that small, quiet little Vera Claythorne had deliberately set out to hurt Matron Lucas.

Philip hasn’t started moving again. He’s pressed close against her, his hand cupping her breast. His cock is hard, but his hips are still. There’s no urgency to his lust. Vera’s glad of that, for her own desire has abated. She feels cold, despite his warm arm around her.

“She used to wake us early, too,” she says. There’s a dullness in her voice. She can hear it, but she can’t change her tone. She could try, but Philip would hear at once that she’s not being honest, and he’d wring the truth from her. It would be much harder, that way. At least by admitting some of it herself, she may be able to keep the rest of it back. “She made us kneel by our beds and pray every morning for half an hour,” Vera tells him. “So I woke up even earlier one morning, and left my soap on the stairs. The light didn’t work. I knew she’d fall.”

Even now she can remember the sick, awed feeling that had flooded through her when she’d seen that lifeless body at the bottom of the stairs. Matron Lucas had been like a doll, her head at an unnatural angle. Vera had done that; she had made it happen. It was the first time she had realised how powerful she was. She had always known she was different. Then, only eight years old and already a murderer, she had realised that her differences had benefits as well as disadvantages.

“Did you mean to do it?” Philip asks her. He speaks softly. His hand slides down, off her breast and back onto her stomach. It rests there, heavy and possessive. Vera has spoiled the mood, she recognises. He’s still aroused, and she knows he could easily bring her back to arousal if he chose to. But he seems prepared to do nothing more than hold her, if that’s the way things go now. Vera keeps her eyes tightly shut and wishes she’d never started this game. She so rarely wins, with Philip, and he has unwrapped so many of her layers that all her old wounds feel fresh and exposed. Too close to the surface for her to speak of lightly. “Vera,” Philip says, a gentle reprimand. She’s been quiet too long. He wants his answer. “Did you mean to kill her?”

“No,” she admits. “No, I didn’t mean to. But I was glad.” Oh, how glad she had been, once the reality of the situation had sunk in. Matron Lucas, gone forever, no longer able to hurt Vera or any of the other girls, except in their nightmares.

She desperately wants to turn around, to hide her face against Philip’s chest. His arm is around her now, warm and strong, but she wants to be encircled by him. She wants to inhale his scent and pretend that he means what he’s said before, that he will keep her safe. It may be an illusion, it may be that he will grow bored of her before long, but Vera wants to cling to the illusion. At least for now. At least for a while. She has exposed a raw nerve and she wants him to soothe it.

She cannot remember anyone ever soothing her hurts before. It isn’t something she’d known she wanted, until now. Until Philip.

She twists, and Philip’s arm tenses for a moment and then loosens. He lets her turn around, and he moves as well, rolling onto his back. He takes her with him, so she’s pressed close up against his side. Vera rests her head against his bare chest and hears his heartbeat, feels the warmth of his skin and the softness of his chest hair. Philip puts his arms around her, and he says nothing as she sinks into the safety of his embrace. 

Safe.

There are so many things he could ask her now. She’s sure he has many questions. She’s told him more about her past, just now, than she has yet. He’s had truths from her, of course, but not this. Not her past. And now, even as his arms make her feel safe and anchored, Vera knows he is merely turning over the questions in his mind. He will be deciding what to ask. Vera tries not to think about it. She presses her cheek against his chest and concentrates on the steady beat of his heart. She tries to let it drown out the singing from downstairs. She tries to pretend that there is nothing else in the world but this. She and Philip, lying here together.

“I’m sorry,” she says at last, when Philip still doesn’t speak. “I didn’t mean to…” Vera loathes apologising, but she started a game that she couldn’t finish. Now she feels that she’s let him down in some way, that she must make it clear that she doesn’t mean to be…well, a tease. She supposes that’s what she’s done. She’s teased him, excited him, and then backed away. But she didn’t mean it. She didn’t _mean_ for those memories to swamp her. Everything is so very exposed. He has exposed her. All her scars are vivid and painful. She hadn’t known how painful it would be, speaking about her first kill. Not because it was a murder, not because she had done it, but because it has brought back all the memories of the home that she has tried so hard to suppress.

“Shh, I know, darling,” Philip soothes her. He lifts a hand to cup her head, cradling her to him. She wonders, not for the first time, how he can be so very gentle and yet so very cruel. He might easily pin her down now, with words if not with actions, and demand she tell him everything there is to tell. He could pull from her the story of Matron Lucas and how she had treated the girls under her care. He could take more than that; he could ask why she was in the home at all. But he doesn’t do that. He holds her with infinite tenderness and demands nothing. “I know,” he murmurs again. “Hush now. It’s alright. Stay with me, Vera.”

Downstairs, Mrs Flynn is still singing. It can’t have been even ten minutes since Vera was woken by it. She could turn and look at the clock, but she can’t bear to move. Not until Philip makes her. She thinks that she would stay here forever, if she could. Held in his arms, kept safe, just like he’d said on Soldier Island. But then Mrs Flynn finishes one hymn and begins another, louder than ever, and Vera flinches. Too many memories. Matron Lucas had been devout. All the music that was ever heard in the home had been hymns. Anything else had been considered heathen, ungodly, a disgrace.

And the girls had carried enough disgrace on their shoulders already, that was what Matron Lucas had always said.

Philip starts stroking her hair, combing his fingers through the strands. Petting her, soothing the wild animal. Vera tries to cling on to the feeling of it, but it’s too hard. There is a scream choking her, stopping her from breathing properly. She presses her lips tightly together to keep it unheard. She cannot scream, no matter how many times Mrs Flynn wakes her early, no matter how many bloody hymns the blasted woman sings. She holds onto Philip and tries to shut away her memories, but it doesn’t work.

“What denomination was it?” Philip asks after a while. “The home.”

“Church of England,” Vera says. It’s hard to speak; her mouth is dry, and she feels as though she can hardly breathe. But Philip deserves an answer, after she’s worked him up and then backed away. He deserves it, even if he doesn’t _demand_ it. 

“Orphan?” he asks.

Vera laughs, hard and bitter. “Worse,” she says. Philip doesn’t press her further. He keeps stroking her hair, regular and gentle. “I learned to hate in that place,” she adds after a moment. “I was only eight when I killed Matron Lucas. I hated her.” If Philip is surprised at how young she was, he gives her no sign of it. He just keeps petting her, and his silent acceptance finally lets Vera start to relax. The poison slowly begins to bleed away under his gentle touch. Even the singing from downstairs doesn’t disturb her as much now.

“I was fifteen,” he says. Vera hums inquiringly, and Philip continues. “First time I killed someone,” he tells her. “I was fifteen. It was meant to be a fistfight, but I took a knife.” She doesn’t have to look to know that he’s smiling, that dark, dangerous smile that should not thrill her so much. Dangerous and full of satisfaction. Philip, like Vera, is someone who knows to take every advantage he can get. In that respect, they’re very alike.

“Were you charged with it?” she asks him. It’s rare that he tells her anything from his past. Vera can’t think of another conversation where she’s asked for more than the crumbs that he occasionally scatters. She wants to take advantage of it now, if he’s willing to talk. She knows so little about his past. 

“No. No, nobody cared much. He was a bully and a thug.” Philip sinks his fingers into her hair, scratching lightly at her skull, as if she’s a cat he’s petting. Part of Vera wants to object, but it’s a relaxing feeling, being stroked and petted like this. Her tension is slowly easing away under his ministrations. “The police came and questioned us all,” Philip goes on, “but everyone clammed up. Not even his nearest and dearest talked. Not that he had many of those.”

“What had he done to you?” Vera asks, genuinely curious. They have both killed to get what they want, not because they enjoy killing in itself. She supposes that, even at fifteen, Philip had wanted something from that death. At fifteen, that probably meant revenge of some kind or another.

“Nothing, to me,” Philip says. There’s a finality in his voice that warns her away from asking anything else. Vera rubs her cheek against his chest and then turns her head to press a kiss to his skin, just below his nipple. His cock has softened, she sees with a glance, but not entirely. Perhaps she can retrieve the mood; perhaps she can pull them both away from the abyss of her past. She doesn’t want that to be the thing he remembers about this morning, when he leaves after breakfast, to do whatever it is he’s doing to establish them in this new country. She doesn’t want him to remember her as scared, or vulnerable. She is tough as forged iron. She won’t break just because their landlady sings hymns.

“It made me feel powerful,” Vera murmurs. Philip makes a questioning noise. “Realising I could kill someone and get away with it. It made me feel…” She pushes herself against him, lifting her leg up, sliding it across him so his thigh is between her legs, against her cunt. Philip inhales, but doesn’t move. Not yet. “It made me feel like I could do anything,” Vera tells him. “And have anything I wanted.” It hasn’t always worked out like that, of course, but there’s no need to say that. Philip already knows. And besides, she hadn’t imagined failures when she’d felt so full of power as a child not even nine years old. She had only imagined the possibilities.

Philip chuckles, and he tugs lightly at her hair to make her lift her face to his. Then he kisses her, hard and biting. He nips at her lip and bruises her mouth. Vera gives as good as she gets. She lets him guide the kiss, but she pulls herself over him, onto him, a leg either side of his hips so she’s straddling him. Her breasts are pressed against his chest, his chest hair tickling and rasping against her sensitive nipples. His hand grasps a buttock, squeezes. Vera rakes her nails across his chest, where the marks won’t be seen by anyone but her. 

His cock is hardening again with flattering speed. She can feel it between her thighs, hot and thick. Vera wants to smile, to show her pleasure at this undeniable proof of his desire for her. But her mouth is otherwise occupied, with kisses so intense that she can scarcely breathe. 

And besides, she knows Philip would take a smile as a challenge. 

He bends his knees, plants his feet on the mattress, pushing Vera into a different position. Now, her own knees widely spread, his cock is at her cunt. She’s wet again, and his cock _slides_ against her deliciously. Vera’s heart is pounding, her breath coming in mewling gasps. Every touch of his cock against her sex, against the outer folds and against her clit, strokes her lust. It all makes her grow wetter, more ready to take him in and be taken by him. She presses against him, bites at his lower lip and tries to find the right angle to get his cock inside her. He grasps at her buttocks, levering her into position.

“You with me?” he asks. He’s as breathless as she is, as aroused as she is. Nobody, she thinks, has ever made her so flushed with arousal as quickly as Philip does. 

“Yes,” she promises. She knows what he’s asking. She won’t disappoint him again, won’t let him down now as she had earlier. The head of his cock presses against her cunt, teasing her. She wants him inside her. She wants to ride him, to erase from his mind all traces of her earlier upset. “I’m with you. Philip…”

He won’t let her seat herself on him; he holds her hips hard and makes her wait. Vera doesn’t fight him. She braces herself, hands at his shoulders. Her breasts sway in the space between their torsos; Philip lifts his head and takes a nipple into his mouth, as if he’s hungry. As if he’s desperate to taste her. Vera knows the feeling. She loves licking at his skin, sucking on his nipples. She wants to suck his cock, to give him pleasure in that way and to taste the most base part of a man, but not now. Not today. Today she wants this, she wants to be above him like this, riding him. She wants to feel powerful. She wants to _be_ powerful.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” Philip gasps against her breast. “Come here – kiss me – Vera –,”

She obeys him, lowering herself so she can meet his mouth with her own. She lifts a hand from his shoulder to his head, combing her fingers through his hair. It curls, unless he uses hair cream. She loves the curl of it, the way it seems to make his surface poise and grace give way to the wildness underneath. Philip dislikes it, she knows. He likes to be in control, of himself and the situations he finds himself in.

But right now Vera has the control. Bent forward like this, his cock is sliding between her thighs, right against her clit. She squeezes her thighs together, and Philip groans into her mouth and arches his hips. It’s delicious, hot and wet, his cock rubbing against her clit. It could almost be enough; Vera could certainly come from this. But she wants him inside her. She wants to feel him pushing up into her, as deep as he can. She wants to sink down on him and watch his face, to know that his gasps, his moans, are for her. She wants to hear him cry her name as he comes inside her.

Philip thrusts again, but Vera relaxes her thighs, giving him nothing to thrust against. Philip snarls, teeth bared. Vera nips at his lower lip and then sits upright again.

“Not like that,” she pants. “In me – now –,” She reaches for his cock, holds it in her hand for a moment and watches him. His hands are still on her hips, and now he pinches her, hard. He doesn’t need to speak; Vera knows what he means. She laughs, barely more than a huffed breath of amusement, and he pinches her again. This time she heeds the unspoken order, and she guides his cock to her entrance. She sinks down, slowly. He tries to buck his hips up, to use his grip on her to bring her down onto him fully, quickly, but Vera resists. She doesn’t care that her hips will bruise under his fingers. She takes him into her slowly, at her own pace, inch by inch. 

“Fucking – _Vera_ –,” Philip says, incoherent. His voice is a rasping growl, and Vera loves the sound of it. 

“That’s what I’m doing,” she says, and then her breath escapes her as Philip is at last deep inside her, as deep as he can go. Philip grins at her, all white teeth and dark eyes. His hips are moving, gentle undulations that do nothing to satisfy, only to stoke the flames. Vera rocks her hips against his, moans at the feel of him inside her. She is full of him. There is nothing but him. Nothing else in the world.

“Beautiful,” Philip murmurs again. Vera quivers, a pulse of lust rippling through her at the awe in his voice. She reaches forward and touches her fingertips to his lips. Philip kisses the pads of her fingers, butterfly light, and then he sucks her forefinger into his mouth. Vera puts her other hand to her clit, suddenly desperately in need of friction. The small movements of her hips, of his hips, are no longer enough. Philip releases her finger from his mouth and lifts his hand from her hips to her breasts. “Go on, then,” he says, almost taunting her. “Fuck me.”

It’s a challenge. Vera knows it is, she knows he’s goading her on. She doesn’t care.

She lifts off him, rising up onto her knees, until his cock is barely still inside her. Then she sinks down again, all the way, one slick, smooth movement. Philip pinches her nipples and she moans, feeling it right in her clit. She does it again, rising and falling, and again, and again. Fast, then slow, and Philip gropes at her breasts and pinches her nipples, even as his breathing becomes ragged. He arches his hips to meet her, thrust for thrust. Vera tries to keep her pace steady, to go slow, but it’s too much for her. He’s too much for her. She’s drowning in it, in him, in this fierce desire that builds between them. 

Her legs won’t support her now. She can’t lift herself up, can’t ride him, all she can do is rock against him and rub her wet clit with two fingers. Philip doesn’t try to make her move, doesn’t put his hands to her hips and lift her as she knows he could. He’s cupping her breasts still, squeezing them, teasing and twisting at her nipples. Vera knows he’s as close to a peak as she is. She knows how to see it in him, by now. His breath comes in gasps, his eyes are dark. His hands are never less than sure on her body, but in a moment, in a few moments, he’ll come and she’ll be flooded with him.

“Vera,” Philip grunts, “Vera, come for – come for me, want to feel you –,”

“Close,” Vera says breathlessly, “so close – Philip –,”

He moves his right hand from her breast. He pushes aside her own hand from her cunt, and then he pinches her nipple and at the same time presses his thumb down on her clit, _hard_. It’s enough. Vera comes, shaking with the force of it. The inner muscles of her core contract around his cock, his fingers work at her clit, and she’s lost in it. She can barely breathe, barely think. There is nothing but this. Nothing else matters but this.

Dimly she hears him say her name. “Vera,” he gasps, “Vera, Vera.” She loves the way he sounds, she loves it. She can’t help but love the way he looks and the way he sounds and the way he treats her. No matter what her feelings are for him, no matter how complicated this relationship is, this at least is simple. She can admit that she loves the way he looks when they fuck, even if anything further is too dangerous to acknowledge.

Then Philip reaches his own peak, arching up against her. Vera moans as she feels it, every nerve ending over-sensitised. His hand falls away from her clit, but even without it a second wave hits her, a second orgasm. She shakes, unbalances and tilts forward, into his welcoming arms. She finds his mouth and kisses him, swallowing his moans and muffling her own cries. Philip carries them through it. The movement of his hips slows and then ceases. The fine trembling in Vera’s muscles eases off, leaving her quiet and still on top of him, her face against his. His cock is still inside her. She’s full of him still, body and mind. He’s in her heart, too, what little of one she has. She refuses to acknowledge how much of her heart is filled with him. She refuses. 

Time passes. Vera doesn’t know if it’s seconds or minutes later when Philip takes a deep breath, and lets it out. Then he rolls her off him, his hands gentle as he lays her down. Vera sighs as his cock slips from her, feeling bereft for a moment. But then Philip pulls her back into his arms, her back against his chest, his arm around her waist. Just as they had been when she awoke, however long ago that was. Vera can’t be bothered to glance at the clock. It doesn’t matter what time it is.

The singing has stopped. Vera closes her eyes and smiles to herself. Behind her, pressed close and warm, Philip begins to chuckle.

“What?” she questions. “What is it?”

“She’s stopped singing,” Philip says. Vera nods a little. She doesn’t understand why he should laugh about it. “Maybe you won’t have to think up a way to kill her,” he goes on. “She might throw us out after this. D’you have any idea how loud you were, Vera?”

Vera is too startled to speak for a moment. Philip is still chuckling; she can feel it as much as hear it, he’s pressed so close to her. Then she starts to laugh too, suddenly seeing the funny side of it. The singing has stopped. Vera doesn’t know if she was louder than usual, or if Mrs Flynn was standing outside their door, singing her hymns to make Vera’s life difficult. It doesn’t matter. The singing has stopped, and Vera can laugh about it now. She can laugh about it, held so safely by Philip, reassured once more that his physical desire for her shows no signs of abating. 

“Just as well,” she says through her laughter. “I couldn’t kill her yet. Not until we find a new place.” 

“Ah, Vera,” Philip says appreciatively, fondly. “Your twisted mind.” He kisses her neck, and tightens his arm around her waist. As if he wants to bring her even closer, though they’re skin to skin already. There’s no space between them. Vera pulls the blankets back over them both, and Philip yawns. “Can you get some more sleep now, darling?” he asks her. He’s slipping into sleep already; his voice is beginning to slur. Vera doesn’t feel guilty for keeping him from his rest, not when he’s held her and kissed her and _listened_ to her. Not when she’s as sated as she is, boneless and contented from his touch. But she can let him sleep, now. The singing has stopped, and her mind is quiet. 

“Yes, I think so,” she says. “Go to sleep, Philip.” 

He makes a sound, deep in his throat, but doesn’t answer in words. Vera takes a deep breath. She lets it out. Then she settles down to snatch another few hours of sleep.


End file.
